Thursday, February 27, 2014

Who is Patrick Moore?

Patrick Moore frequently portrays himself as a founder or co-founder of Greenpeace, and many news outlets have repeated this characterization. Although Mr. Moore played a significant role in Greenpeace Canada for several years, he did not found Greenpeace. Phil Cotes, Irving Stowe, and Jim Bohlen founded Greenpeace in 1970. Patrick Moore applied for a berth on the Phyllis Cormack in March, 1971 after the organization had already been in existence for a year. A copy of his application letter and Greenpeace's response are available here (PDF). [Greenpeace, 12/7/10]

Patrick Moore founded Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in 1991, a communications strategy firm that promotes energy-intensive industries including "mining, energy, forestry, aquaculture, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing," and supports "environmentally sound oil extraction, like is being done in the Canadian oil sands."

He's also pro-nuclear power, though I can't fault him for that. But Greenpeace suggests he sold-out, having said before he became a "consultant":

"It should be remembered that there are employed in the nuclear industry some very high-powered public relations organizations. One can no more trust them to tell the truth about nuclear power than about which brand of toothpaste will result in the sexiest smile,"(9) he wrote before becoming a spokesman for polluters.

Here's his recent testimony before Congress. Try not to gag. But it's alright to laugh (how can you not at this scientific charlatan?)

20 comments:

So,do I understand correctly that, according to Greenpeace, being employed in the nuclear industry makes one unqualified or at least untrustworthy regarding matters related to carbon dioxide emissions?

That carbon dioxide is a bigger problem than nuclear waste disposal?

That's certainly a tenable position, mind. Carbon dioxide floats all over the biosphere whereas plutonium and like heavy-metals tend to settle out, and stay put. CO2 is arguably INCREASING the world's energy (heat in the troposphere, or possibly the deep ocean, or other locations still to be specified) while PuO6 is naturally decaying and so (very, very) slowly REDUCING the amount of energy being dumped into the system.

But it still seems strange that the Greenpeace view should be that it is worse to have a coal-fired electrical plant than a nuclear one, and worse to have either than allow old people to freeze in the dark in the cold of a windless winter night...

By the way David, am I your only commenter, these days? What can I do to get you more traffic?

Moore's general plea regarding our collective climate and atmospheric uncertainty is somewhat analogous to the problem bankers and economists have with monetary policy.

Moore: " we should simultaneously plan for both warming and cooling, [inflation and deflation] recognizing that cooling [deflation] would be the most damaging of the two trends. We do not know whether the present pause in temperature [economic stagnation] will remain for some time, or whether it will go up or down at some time in the near future. What we do know with “extreme certainty” is that the climate [market economy] is always changing, between pauses, and that we are not capable, with our limited knowledge, of predicting which way it will go next. "

So if we DID have a knob with which to attempt climate control, in the way we believe we can, with Keynesian theory, "stimulate" or "restrain" the economy, then I would expect to prefer warm periods to ice ages, in the same way economists prefer inflation. We don't have the knowledge or control to maintain a sweet spot; so we must err in the direction of the least dangerous excess.

Or would you argue that long cold winters kill fewer poor people in marginal regions than a longer hotter summer? (And how many scientists or what percentage of them agree with that argument?)

G.A. Schmidt, who in 2014 publishes a paper arguing that extraordinary strings of COINCIDENCE govern the climate, once upon a time 4 years earlier thought (and published his thoughts) that one knob would do so?

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n3/full/ngeo2098.html

'Here we argue that a combination of factors, by coincidence, conspired to dampen warming trends in the real world after about 1992. ...'

If you're going to serve up my head on a platter could you at least find a fresh new platter for the purpose instead of re-cycling the old?

Any US senator that does not vote to stop the EPA is guilty of malfeasance. The testimony of Dr. Patrick Moore an early member of Greenpeace at Senate hearing shows that Man-made global warming is a political hoax. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRhkKjquWZw His testimony is backed up by thousands of scientific papers and experiments that prove that the greenhouse gas effect does not exist. According to the Cult of AGW there would be no more snow fall by 2010. The weather has proved that the greenhouse gas effect is a lie. Anyone that does not question the Hypotheses of GHGE is dumber than a pet rock.

It is claimed by the Cult of AGW that CO2 is major absorber of IR, this is a lie. Co2 is a very poor absorber of IR it only absorbs three very narrow band of IR at 4nm, 9nm, and 14nm (rounded numbers) and a knowledge of quantum physics shows that CO2 does not absorb all IR at these wavelengths.

John Holdren is the Obama administrations staff alchemist, his job is to turn gold into worthless dirt and fools gold.

Berthold: Patrick Moore is a scientific quack. His ideas are obviously wrong and have no support in the scientific community. It is a travesty his obnoxiously wrong ideas ever appeared before the Congress.

David Appell I hope you have top game ready because your going to have "Most all contrarians are afraid to comment here -- they know they will get their heads handed to them, on scientific principles".

Lets start with "Where is your credible experiment that proves that the Hypotheses of the greenhouse gas effect exist?".”David I'm going to prove you are the quack. What courses have you had in physics, quantum physics and thermodynamics?

Emphasis on "theoretical", no doubt. Google "Who are the Founders of Greenpeace"I'm no quack, In 2009 received the National Award for Nuclear Science and History, given by the Einstein Society, associated with Smithsonian.True-Believers listen to Michael Crichton, "I am certain there is too much certainty in the world".

Did Berthold run away because you told him you had a PhD in Theoretical Physics to which he couldn't reciprocate? Or did he run away after knowing that trying to use the Oregon Petition to back up his statement "His testimony is backed up by thousands of scientific papers and experiments that prove that the greenhouse gas effect does not exist." would get him ridiculed and laughed out of a 3rd grade science class?

Patrick Moore: Yes, you are certainly a quack. You very obviously do not know climate science -- worse, you don't take the time to investigate it and understnad the issues in detail -- you just make dumb pronouncements about times like 450 million years ago, without acknowledging the most basic of facts.

You don't act like a scientist in the least. I don't know who gave you a PhD, but it was a big mistake, because your critical thinking skills are terrible.

I would be a bit open-minded on who the founders of Greenpeace are. "Founded" isn't always a particularly precise word. And wikipedia says that Moore was one of an early group who made the decision to rename the "don't make a wave" foundation to "greenpeace".

Anyway, it is a pointless distraction for whatever points he is arguing.

As I stated on the article on David Appell, CO2 is a very poor absorber of IR, 4nm, 9nm,14nm. There is no credible experiment that proves that the Hypotheses of greenhouse gas effect exists.

I am just using an E-mail I sent to another "activist" he does not know any science, you should know better.You obviously suffer from "The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance."—Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein once said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” Einstein’s words express a foundational principle of science intoned by the logician, Karl Popper: Falsifiability. In order to verify a hypothesis there must be a test by which it can be proved false. A thousand observations may appear to verify a hypothesis, but one critical failure could result in its demise. The history of science is littered with such examples.

Thanks David, for pointing out Dr. Moore’s charlatan antics. The man is an embarrassment to people trying to promote a scientific approach to environmental policy. He leads with his PhD in Ecology (a 1969 survey of a couple of ARD sites) despite not having published a single piece of peer-reviewed science in more than 40 years. Then he trots out his affiliation with a no-nukes-save-the-whales environmental group 30 years ago, which has virtually nothing in common with modern sustainability thinking. The only problem is that some people might take his credentials at face value, and his Gish-galloping misinformation seriously.

His book is best avoided, but I did a long piece exploring many aspects of it, and found him to have a complete disregard for science, the environment, or even his own previously-stated opinions. He’s a shill, shamelessly trying to make a buck by leveraging his youthful idealism long after it has turned into cynical heartless profiteering.

Thanks David, for pointing out Dr. Moore’s charlatan antics. The man is an embarrassment to people trying to promote a scientific approach to environmental policy. He leads with his PhD in Ecology (a 1969 survey of a couple of ARD sites) despite not having published a single piece of peer-reviewed science in more than 40 years. Then he trots out his affiliation with a no-nukes-save-the-whales environmental group 30 years ago, which has virtually nothing in common with modern sustainability thinking. The only problem is that some people might take his credentials at face value, and his Gish-galloping misinformation seriously.

His book is best avoided, but I did a long piece exploring many aspects of it, and found him to have a complete disregard for science, the environment, or even his own previously-stated opinions. He’s a shill, shamelessly trying to make a buck by leveraging his youthful idealism long after it has turned into cynical heartless profiteering.